


Lilac Skies

by hanjisungsslut



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Aesthetics, Anxiety, Depression, Han Jisung | Han Is Bad at Feelings, Han Jisung | Han is An Artist, Instant Connection, Late Night Conversations, Lee Minho | Lee Know is A Writer, Lee Minho | Lee Know is Whipped, M/M, Pills, Soulmate AU, Soulmates, Teen Romance, Vandalism, alternative universe, anxiety mention, drug mention, it’s implied, late night meetings, red and blue - Freeform, red/blue dynamics, vibes, write a fic without crime challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27187861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanjisungsslut/pseuds/hanjisungsslut
Summary: Minho’s hair was blue, but his life and everything around him, it seems, was red. He had been torn away from everything since young.“No, Minho!”“Wait, Minho!”“Stop, Minho!”Minho was tired of stopping. And as much as he willed himself to not stop, to go and be free and run on his own two feet, he couldn't. He was stopped. An object at rest tends to stay at rest.Jisung’s hair was red, but it seemed his entire world was, and had always been, blue. He had been pushed through everything since he was young.“Come on, Jisung!”“Don’t be a wimp, Jisung!”“Go, Jisung!”Jisung didn’t want to go. As much as he wished he had the confidence, the ability to raise his voice higher than two octaves, to declare himself stopped, he didn't. He was moving. an object in motion tends to stay in motion.When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, there is only one thing left to do: collide.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 22
Kudos: 173
Collections: MINSUNG SEASON: Colourful Autumn 2020





	Lilac Skies

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Welcome. This is a project I have wanted to complete for a while now! It’s been super close to my heart and I really just wanted to play with these dynamics. My inspiration comes from the lilac skies spotify playlist which you can find on my twitter account @hanjisungsslut. This is apart of a challenge, please give a follow to http://twitter.com/minsungseason !
> 
> TW:
> 
> \- anxiety and panic attack mention  
> \- depression  
> \- drugs (prescription)  
> \- unhealthy habits
> 
> Please be aware! I hope you enjoy as always and feel free to come speak with me on twitter!
> 
> \- Kenzi

Minho’s hair was blue, but his life and everything around him, it seems, was red.

He had been torn away from everything since young.

“No, Minho!”

“Wait, Minho!”

“Stop, Minho!”

Minho was tired of stopping. 

And as much as he willed himself to not stop, to go and be free and run on his own two feet, he couldn't. He was stopped. An object at rest tends to stay at rest.

And all around him was red. 

Stoplights, taillights, road signs, railways, the blood that coats the inside of his bathroom sinks. His life was washed in a scarlet hue and he begged to be set free from the color.

Minho sighed as his boots hit gravel. He climbed from his car, a nice-looking model if only it wasn’t the color of a cherry, and made his way up creaking wooden steps. 

His grandma’s house was nice, built more like a cottage than the classy up-scale homes surrounding it. She was a rather assertive woman, always questioning Minho on his life plans and urging him to pursue something worthwhile. Minho never dared to tell her what he wanted to do for a living. 

Despite her aggressive nature, she could be rather kind. She came to almost all of Minho’s recitals, she invited them over all the time, she made them food (which always vaguely tasted of the mothballs surrounding her refrigerator). She was old-fashioned too, having grown up on the country-side. and everyday, like the gentleman he was, he brought her her mail.

He reached the top of the stairs, envelopes and papers in hand as he knocked on the door. The red door. God, he hated that fucking door.

His knocking was met with silence and he figured she must have left to do her errands early. Minho sighed and used the familiar paper weight to hold down her mail, before setting back off to his car.

As he waited to turn onto his road, a thought occurred to him. Oh, how easy it would be just continue on, to not stop driving and just drive on his own free will and never stop. And though the only thing it would really cost was gas, he didn't. He didn’t keep going, he stopped and turned onto his street. An object at rest tends to stay at rest.

+++

Jisung’s hair was red, but it seemed his entire world was, and had always been, blue.

He had been pushed through everything since he was young.

“Come on, Jisung!”

“Don’t be a wimp, Jisung!”

“Go, Jisung!”

Jisung didn’t want to go. 

As much as he wished he had the confidence, the ability to raise his voice higher than two octaves, to declare himself stopped, he didn't. He was moving. an object in motion tends to stay in motion. 

And all around him was blue. 

His jeans, prescription pills, the sky above, the way he feels, the body of water in his back lawn that he wished he could sink into and never come up from. His life was covered in a sapphire hue and he wanted nothing more than to see another color.

Jisung waited patiently in line at the paint shop, chewing away at his fingernails and turning them into nubs. He rocked back and forth on his heels as a way to keep his body moving. Jisung never could sit still. Wherever he was, people seemed to expect the motion that came with him: a finger tapping rhythmically on whatever surface he could lay his hands on, a leg bouncing rapidly beneath the table, his uncomfortable squirming in his seat no matter how cozy.

Jisung was someone who was always moving, someone who seemingly always had to be moving. It didn’t bother him at all. Aside from his habit of fidgeting, Jisung found other ways to move. 

He craved change and adventure, he feared commitment and settling. Jisung moved in a loop around his friends' houses, always staying in a new area of the house when he returned to a house he’d lived in already. He never had a stable relationship, always getting bored and wanting to seek out his newest temporary constant. 

They were never constants. His mother would tell him he had a lack of impulse control.

“You move around too much,” she would say, “how will you build a life if you don’t find a way to calm down just enough to establish something?”

And of course, he would argue that he knew himself well enough and he knew the life she spoke of was not ever going to satisfy him. He would argue the same points countless times until his mother sighed and changed the subject. 

He never officially came out to her, knew he didn’t have to, but it was still something that occasionally lingered in the very back of his mind, something that often found itself depicted on his canvas in a blend of color.

It was times like that, times like tonight, when he sat staring at his painting. It was a boy, a faceless image of himself, surrounded by tints and shades of blue and whose hands were pressed to his void face, overflowing with red dripping down his arms.

It was times like that, times that made Jisung really think about stopping or even slowing down just a little. His friends and family wouldn’t mind if he did, they would probably be more relieved than anything, yet he was still afraid. All he ever did was move. And an object in motion, tends to stay in motion.

+++

Minho asked himself often what it was he had to fear about this world. He found that a default state of his was fear, though he couldn't find anything to be afraid of. He never cared for change and in a way, that eliminated a lot of typical fears.

He didn’t have to face the anxiety of moving to a new area or meeting new people, didn’t have that sinking feeling of being out of place in a crowd. That was all because Minho didn’t go to new areas, didn’t meet new people and didn’t involve himself in crowds. Instead, he stuck to what he knew and what made him feel safe and secure.

It was boring, actually. He wouldn’t mind moving away from the comfort of his childhood bedroom in his parents house, wouldn’t mind meeting someone other than his one high school friend who still put up with him, wouldn’t mind joining a crowd and being able to let the current take him. he knew he never would, because he had been taught from young to stay still and stick to what he knows. There was nothing for him to truly fear, but perhaps Minho feared his own desire. 

Irony is a funny thing. The idea that perhaps he himself was the fear installed and weighing his brain down with every passing moment. It didn’t make much sense, but nothing ever did.

Minho was a writer. He liked to write, found a sense of freedom in it. He valued his works, his showcasing of skills he tried so hard to convey in every piece he distributed. It wasn’t often that a writer lived in fear, the ones that did were not considered to be among the greats. Writers were scared of absolutely nothing and their fearlessness made them great. Minho could never see himself amongst such people. 

Every time he wrote a piece, he felt like a fraud. His skill was wasted on an individual like himself, too scared to add on to a barely started piece in fear of messing it up, too afraid to publish or finalize anything. He would never be amongst such great people because they either had the courage to write, or their works were recovered on their deathbed. Minho thinks the latter is more likely to happen than him finishing anything.

Minho called himself a writer, but he wasn’t really. He was a man, at the ripe age of twenty-two, a man with anxiety in his fingertips and worry in his lungs, a man who never wrote anything yet burned with the desire to. He told his parents he would publish something before his mid-twenties, told them he would be something great. Someone great. Instead, he sat in the house they paid for, at the desk they bought and drove the car that’s theirs because he didn’t remember the last time a single decision was his to make.

His hair was blue, the one thing his parents so openly disliked about him. That wasn’t the only thing they didn’t like, he knew it wasn’t, but it was the only one they’d say to his face. The color wasn’t even his choice, it was Changbin's, who bent him over a bathtub in the early hours of the morning after sending in another mediocre essay to his professor and proving yet again that his disappointment in himself is rational.

When people asked what he does, on the rare occasion that they ask, he told them he was a creative writing major. When they asked what he will do when he graduates, he told them he would write. When they asked how long he’s been writing, he’d say fourth grade and offer a clipped smile at the comments. He’d say these things, claim a title that wasn’t his to a group of people he didn’t know. He’d have nothing else to say to these people, because he didn’t write and he didn’t have solid plans for the future, and he was dreading the day he woke up and everything he feared became real.

The truth was, Minho fit into every box he was put in. He adjusted and chopped off pieces of himself until he was the perfect size to sit comfortably. It didn’t matter if he had to throw out his heart and stomach to make himself small enough to fit, because it made his mother smile and his father proud. 

And perhaps it was this very adjustment that led his relationships to be the way they were now. His parents spent so much time molding him the way they wanted that when the dinner parties ended and old friends pulled out into the street, they were left with just the mold. The perfect, shiny outside that could draw any eye, but a hollow and empty inside. When the cameras stopped flashing, Minho wasn’t their son, he wasn’t anybody. He was a lump of clay, waiting to be molded into his next form, whether that be the straight-A honors student, the respectful and kind boy in the back of the class or the silent piece to be paraded around. 

If you were to pluck a clam from the ocean and open it, you would expect to find a pearl. The pearl is what matters, though the outside is pretty too, it isn’t near worth what the inside is. But when there’s nothing on the inside, when all you’re met with is an empty disappointment, you throw the shell back into the ocean.

Because the shell is only so pretty and isn’t worth anything when it’s missing the prize on the inside. 

+++

Jisung didn’t have constants in his life, but the continuous questions that invited themselves to the forefront of his mind were as close as he would ever come. It was always the same ones, the select few that he could never provide any form of an answer to. He ran now, ran and never stopped running, but he wondered what would happen to him when his legs grew weaker and his bones grew thinner. What happened to a runner who can no longer run?

Stepping off the bus, he let his thoughts take him to their graveyard, show him and tell him things he had long ago shoved away in favor of doing the more important things. However, as he walked home to his newest home, a one-bedroom apartment in the center of the city with baby blue walls, there was nothing to distract him. 

His brain broke off into a hundred contrasting pieces in minutes, he was relying entirely on his feet to take him home to the right place. Most of the twenty minute walk was swallowed by the rapid pacing of his mind, and the colliding of new and older thoughts at once. His thoughts didn’t stop when he unlocked the door to the bare apartment, they didn't stop when he pushed open his bedroom door and ignored all responsibilities to sit on the garbage-bag covered carpet to grab his paints.

He transferred everything onto a blank canvas, made stroke after stroke and covered white in color. He did this for an hour and didn’t think of anything else besides this painting. When he’s done, he’s surrounded by paintbrushes of different sizes, his clothes splattered and ruined with his thoughts and feelings. The canvas in front of him was no longer white, but an array of blues. Only blue. 

Jisung got tired of the color blue when he was thirteen. It was never his favorite color, but he didn’t mind it back then. As time went on and his mother got too concerned, he grew a personal vendetta against the color that he placed on his tongue every day to suppress the weights in his chest and the screaming in his head. He saw it, tasted it, breathed it almost every day of his life for the last seven years. And now at the age of twenty, he resented it with every cell that made up his body. But he couldn’t escape it, because every morning and every evening at eight, he placed blue on his tongue and exhaled blue from his lungs.

Blue tasted like a lump in his throat, like a pull in his chest. Blue tasted like everything he didn’t want to remember. Blue tasted like his tears and the salt water from the lake behind his mother’s house from which he’d accidentally drank as a small child. blue tasted like his father’s figure as it closed the door for the last time and took everything with it. 

He hated it, but he hated even more how much he painted it. He hated the streaks of blue that always made it into his pieces, he hated how no matter what feelings the drugs in his system boosted, there was always an underlying darkness veiled thinly by the forced dopamine and the darkness wasn’t black, it was blue.

He said it’s a side-effect of the drugs, but everyone who had spent more than ten minutes speaking to him knew the reason he never settled cannot be attributed to antidepressants. It's the fault of fear and fear alone that had him running at the first sign of commitment in anything.

He made friends, dozens of them, but he never kept them. He dated people, so many different people with nothing in common and no method to his choosing, but he never stayed with them. He lived in houses and apartments, under bridges and in cars, but nothing felt like home. Jisung was a runner, so he ran.

As much as he was a runner, Jisung was a liar. His mother said pathological, but who's really to know. He lied to everyone about everything because really what’s the fun in being honest if the honest answer was boring. He knew the day was just over the horizon, the day his throat closed and tongue grew frail and he could not muster a lie to save him from the fate he would come to. Jisung was trying to outrun that day.

You can’t get caught if there was no one there to catch you. And Jisung made sure that there would be no one to wither his tongue and wilt his throat. He knew one day he would do it to himself, but that day was just over the horizon and Jisung thought if he ran fast enough, it couldn’t catch him. 

+++

Theories of midnight placed a lot of weight around the hour. There's tale after tale about the things that went on in the dark, in the dead center of the night when people were home and creatures roamed. Minho took these theories with a grain of salt, being the only living being still out in his hometown. The streets were vacant, soundless for once in their days. The only sounds around we’re that of his blinker and the windshield wipers.

His return from work was always the same, it’s the same job he’s had since he was fourteen. It's a small shop only ten minutes from his home, owned by a family whose name is older than the town itself, they ran a store on the property across the road from their resistance and they’ve known his family since he was young. They’re nice people, nice enough to give him a job at his young age and nice enough to keep him around for the eight years that followed. 

He worked there from two to eleven without much business until he went home at exactly midnight every night. Every night he paused as he sat in his car and the thought ran through his mind again. He had the steering wheel and the gas pedal, he had the gas and the road. But he didn’t go. He never went.

Every night he sat at the red light at a controlled intersection separating him from the only road that takes him home. Every night he sat there in dead silence and waited for the red to turn green. It's not like that tonight, he wasn’t alone tonight.

Red. Red flowed over dark pavement, casted the painted white lines in an alarming glow. There was red draped through his windows and red draped through the windows of the car stopped opposite of his.

A boy, no older than Minho himself, sat opposite to him at the red light. Any evidence of the pouring rain was wiped away by the pace of his wipers, his blinker clicked on and off on the left. 

Minho had been washed in red his entire life, he’d been drowned in it, burned in it. Red didn’t compliment him the way it did this boy. This boy embraces red, he _was_ red in more ways than the color on his face. The boy was ravishing in red. 

He stared back at Minho. A peculiar feeling bubbling in his chest. They both sat in the red sea flowing from the traffic lights, but only one of them looked like he should be there. Minho had never been able to leave red behind.

The boy stared at Minho curiously, almost like one would view a question they didn’t know the answer to. Perhaps, the boy was trying to figure him out from across the road.

Why did he look so comfortable in a color that wasn’t his?

And soon enough, the red was stripped from their figures and replaced with green, a color neither of them knew well and they both turned left onto opposite roads. 

And Minho drove home, for once in his life, thinking that maybe red could be beautiful.

+++

The city was loud.

Streets never slept, never knew peace even in the early hours of the morning. There was always something keeping the city alive, keeping it a crowded and suffocating hole that swallowed up citizens like a hungry animal. When the night ended, the day started and the people the streets greeted were different, but not new. 

The city was deafening. 

Jisung grew up on the outer parts of a city, in a sub level of a rundown apartment complex tucked behind the very few businesses that could afford to stay running. The buses didn’t pass through there, the city’s nor the schools, so everyday, he ran under interstates and bridges to the nearest bus stop thirty minutes running distance from his home and waited. He woke up late most days and was rushed through his morning routine, to then run at top speed to the bus stop and ride a fast-paced bus to school where he would be rushed through coursework.

He never knew slow, and anything less than as fast as possible was torturous to him. He collected speeding tickets in his high school days like the other kids collected awards, got to the point of framing them above his bed like souvenirs. 

In his adulthood, his fast-paced life transferred over. He went to school for most of his day, came home and painted as much as the time would allow him, then went to work at the coffee shop on campus. When he came home, he would crash and burn in his bed until his alarm went off and he did it all again. 

It was different tonight.

He didn’t know why. The movement in the city, the noise and the chaos was what he grew up with, what he knew. It had never bothered him before, in fact, he had adjusted to it so well that he now welcomed it with open arms. But today, when he got home from a long lecture that had him tapping his fingers against the desk so loud it almost drove the kid next to him insane, and he finished his hours of homework and looked out the window to the streets, he had to leave.

He didn’t go far. He really only drove above thirty minutes before ending up in a very, _very_ small town around midnight, when the roads were deserted and only streetlights saw him there. It was baffling.

There were no 8-lane-highways, just one road with two directions. There were no people walking around or stumbling over curves as their friends tried to lure them into a taxi. There were no open and bustling businesses or voices seeping through the cracks in his window. 

There was silence. There was peace. 

He had never in his life seen so much grass. The businesses were so spaced out, divided by hills and _houses_ . People lived _beside_ their shops in a house instead of above them in a flat. He hadn’t seen a cop in ages. 

He didn’t know where he was going, only that he had gotten caught by a red light and in his fidgeting while waiting, had caught the eye of the only other person out of the road with him. Normally, he wouldn’t pay it any kind, but this town was dead at this hour, yet this boy was out like him.

Red washed them both in its glow, but as he studied the boy, he frowned. He didn’t look bad in red, god this boy couldn’t look bad in anything, but it simply wasn’t his color. The red gave a weird hue to the boy’s hair, like it was colored unnaturally as Jisung’s own was. He looked at Jisung like he had never seen another person at a red light before.

Jisung noted their blinkers, the way they were going opposite ways. How funny. 

Then, the light turned green and the moment turned over with it. They turned their separate directions and continued on like nothing had happened. 

Jisung drove for a while longer and then he found a river. For some reason, he couldn’t shake the compulsion he felt towards it, like he _had_ to venture out into the vast blue. Many times he had thought about letting the lake behind his complex swallow him whole as a kid, but it was never for long enough.

He parked the car and didn’t think twice about hopping the fence to where the riverbank ended and the river began. He didn’t bother stripping of his clothes, didn’t think about it at all as he removed his shoes and stepped in. The water hugged his ankles like it had been expecting him, like it was welcoming him and encouraging him to go further.

He did.

He sunk into the river until he was neck deep in cold water. The freezing cold temperature on his skin kept him moving to the center in hopes of warming up. He doesn’t know how long he spent in the center of the blue abyss, disappearing from the world.

There was movement on the other side of the river, opposite to where he had come in. In the darkness, it was impossible to see him, but he still sunk a little lower into the water. He saw the same boy from the red light, the one who stared at him so curiously, sat on the edge of the riverbank. 

He didn’t even notice his presence, didn’t notice that there was a world happening around him. At this hour, the earth could have stopped turning without anybody there to see it. But this boy would, he would see it and Jisung would too.

Jisung didn’t believe in such trivial things like love of first sight. There was _attraction_ at first sight, but certainly not love. And gazing at this boy across the river, there was _something_ about him, something alluring. 

“Good-looking” and “handsome” were such generic terms to describe someone of his beauty. There was elegance in his looks, a face only a noble could be born with. Perhaps in a past life, he had been.

In this life, he was a small town boy with blue hair, who sat on the riverbank past midnight. 

Jisung swam towards him without meaning to, without realizing his arms were moving before the rush of water around his body alerted him. He was too close to the edge by then, and the boy had finally noticed something in the river. He looked up, eyes locking with Jisung’s. 

The boy’s eyebrows furrowed, his face screwing up like and tilting his head like a cat. Jisung didn’t speak, instead, he smiled. The man stared at him wryly, but a small smile of his own sent its way to Jisung. 

And then, the boy stood up and he walked off the riverbank back towards where he’d emerged from, and Jisung felt the water grow colder as he left.

+++

Jisung was an artist.

That’s what other people called him. He wouldn’t call himself an artist, because despite what everyone would tell you, art has rules. People only want to see a certain kind of art, the art that is appealing and pretty or the kind that is deep and leaves you thinking. While Jisung’s paintings fell into these categories enough for him to be considered an artist, he wasn't one. Because his work wasn't created to be appealing or deep, it’s his feelings depicted on a canvas and nobody seemed to understand that but him.

His newest piece was on display at an exhibit, though he hated attending these things more than anything else. Everything was so quiet, so slow. 

His mother is there. She’s there, but he doesn’t dare tell her which piece is his and she doesn’t ask because she is sure she knows which it is from the moment she enters. They walked the exhibit together, Jisung wearing his patience thin in the atmosphere, until he couldn't take it anymore and excused himself to the bathroom.

He didn’t go to the bathroom and instead, he walked the halls of the museum, taking in his classmate’s art. They hadn't left the side of their pieces since they were brought in, and Jisung admired their pride. He would never feel anything similar to it.

He found himself in front of an exhibit, only one other person beside him. He didn’t look at them in favor of looking at the painting.

A large canvas stretched horizontally, a thick and jagged white line separating the two sides of the work. One side is winter, full blue and purple trees, snowy banks and frozen rivers, the world is cast in blue hues. The other side is summer, naked trees, auburn grass and a running river, all bathed in a red-orange color from the setting sun in the background. Two sides of the same river, two polar opposites. He stood on the side of winter.

The movement to his right brought him out of his thoughts and he cast a glance over only to stop.

The boy from the riverbank, from the red light, stood before him. He stood on the red side of the painting, hair was a dark blue, much more visible under the fluorescents. His suit was crushed velvet, the hue of a sapphire.

He stared at Jisung like he couldn’t put him together, like he had all the pieces but couldn't figure out their order.

“Are you following me?” Jisung blurted out. The boy blinked momentarily. His eyes widened when Jisung spoke to him. He took a small step back and furrowed his brows.

“I was going to ask you the same.” His voice is that of a songbird, melody within every word that passes his lips. Jisung feels he should be paying to hear such a man speak, especially to him.

“Guess that answers that question,” Jisung mumbles and outstretches his hand, “forgive me for being rude. I think it’s about time we met.” 

The boy glances down at his awaiting hand. He regards it, not judgmentally as he studies the lines on Jisung’s palm. He slowly raises his own palm, pushes it against Jisung’s and shakes firmly. He pulls away instantly.

“My name is Minho.”

“I’m Jisung.” 

Minho’s eyes drift back to the painting, swimming with questions and wonder at once. He’s so quiet, like he has forgotten the world entirely.

“Red and blue, huh?” He laughs bitterly, almost to himself, “Wonder what the theme was.”

“Maybe it was opposites.” Jisung offers and Minho’s gaze snaps towards him, somewhat intense. He frowns and stares at the painting once more. Jisung is very intrigued by him, by the way his mind seems to be working on several levels right now. He is calculating, trying to analyze the painting until it makes sense. 

“Though that’s just my theory.” Jisung tacks on and turns back to stare at the artwork as well, “What do you think when you see it?”

Minho is silent for a while, allowing the silence to wrap around them like a bubble shielding them from the rest of the world. People walk by and stop to marvel at the work, but they stay planted in front of it, eyes on two different pieces. 

“It’s a spectrum.” Minho says finally and he sounds far away, far beyond where Jisung tries to go, “The white line is the middle ground, that’s why it’s so thin compared to the scaling of the other objects. It’s showcasing the extremities. Only red or blue, no in between.”

“You study art?” Jisung prompts, though he would know if Minho did. Perhaps, they go to different schools, but it wouldn’t make sense for him to be at this exhibit if that were the case. 

“No.” Minho says in exactly the way he predicted he would, “I’m a writing major.” 

Jisung knows very few writing majors, knows even less about the actual coursework. He never excelled in any core subjects, english and writing included. His heart could always be found in paints and colored pencils, but he admired those who poured theirs into a pen and a paper and shaped words in ways he could only dream of. 

Jisung showed his feelings, Minho could tell them.

“May I ask you a question that may seem just a touch invasive?” 

“Go ahead.”

“What do you fear?”

A rather peculiar question for someone you’ve just met, Jisung will admit as much. As much of an analyzer as Jisung isn’t, he can’t help but focus on the finer details of that man in front of him. Lines on his forehead tell years of pinched brows and worrisome words, the subtle twitching of his mouth when something humors him is every bit a crack in his gorgeous façade, the scrunch of his nose when he concentrates is the only sign of youth on the surface. He lives in the body of a young man, but he shows the wisdom of someone who has lived beyond what time can tell.

Minho shoots him a curious gaze from the side of his eye. Jisung stands his ground, though his hands are sweating more than they were earlier. Minho is an enigma, a puzzle he wants to piece together. 

“If I say a clown, will you be standing over my bed tonight in a clown mask?” Minho quirks a brow and the monotonous tone takes Jisung a second to react to. He was joking, only given away by that slight twitch of his mouth.

“No.” He replies easily, “I wouldn’t be over your bed, I would be under it.” 

“Change.” Minho says and turns back to look at the painting for the final time, “I fear change.”

“Funny.” Jisung mumbles and looks back as well, “I think I fear commitment.” 

+++

Ever since the art exhibit, Minho’s brain hasn’t allowed him a second of peace. His thoughts are a whirlwind, any words that come forth to the surface are scrambled and illegible, any pictures that present themselves are without a subject. 

He can’t write a word to save his life. 

There’s so much happening in his mind, and yet not a single word of it can be recorded. Nothing inspires him, nothing evokes the emotion that he needs to fill the blank document with words. Nothing he’s thought in the last twenty-four has been worth writing, anyway.

He went to an art exhibit, found a painting that seemed to sum up his life to the very last detail. He found a chance to take something for himself and yet, he still stood on the red side of the piece. Minho, the boy of blues, still stuck with red. He didn’t know how to do anything else.

He did meet a boy, though. A boy who seems to be every bit as complicated and messy as the ones Minho has observed throughout his life. Only, this boy was different. He was a layered individual, and he looked at Minho like he held all the answers. 

He would never see him again. As fun as it had been to finally meet the only other person who existed after midnight, Minho didn’t believe in fate. He didn’t dare think about their chance meetings or their understanding of each other that seemed to only further their individual complexity. He didn’t dare yearn for something he would never have.

But his writing was getting nowhere and he couldn’t think straight to save his life, so he decided to do something he didn’t ever do. 

For someone afraid of movement, the club was not exactly the ideal place. It was full of movement, full of people who wanted change and Minho hated those very things. But, he needed a change of scenery before he choked on the red stoplights keeping him still.

He wasn’t sure what he intended to get out of it, maybe inspiration or some kind of detail that would set his mind in motion. But he is so obviously out of place, and he feels like everybody in there knows it. 

There’s two parts of the club, the blue room and the red room. A bar in each one with a white-lit hallway leading to the bathrooms that splits them. Minho ends up in the red room, scarlet washing over his figure and dying his black shirt maroon. He doesn’t stop for a drink or a dance, he continues through the crowd as if he didn’t even intend to visit.

On the other end, swimming in sapphire, is the boy from the museum. Jisung, if Minho recalls correctly. He seems to be everywhere Minho is and, evidently, even where Minho isn’t. 

The club is exactly where a guy like him belongs. Noise so loud it hurts his eardrums, bodies reeking of sweat and alcohol pressed tightly together, a feeling of absolute freedom from reality. It’s the place Minho was scared of, but only because he knew he could never be one of them. 

The door frame was cold when he pressed his shoulder into it, leaning all of his weight onto the wall. The boy came closer, still encased in the blue sea when he matched Minho’s stance. The blue dyes his dark red hair purple, the lights from the scarlet room stealing his face for itself.

They stared at each other, not a word spoken between them. It wouldn’t be heard even if they did speak, the bass vibrating through Minho’s ribs would muffle every syllable. Though, he supposed there wasn't a need to speak when there was nothing to say. 

They were strangers to each other, strangers to methodical madness each of them engaged in. Nothing they did was shared by the other, nothing they did could be compared. Only one thing within them showed any semblance of similarity: the empty loneliness concealed behind their eyes looked a lot like each other. They were the echos in the silence, but no two echos could be compared. And echos faded. 

Jisung moved closer, because God only knew he couldn't stand still to save himself, and let his feet carry him to Minho’s silhouette. He relaxed on the opposite wall, leaving an adequate amount of space between their torsos.

“This isn't where I thought I’d find you.” Jisung’s voice was like honey dripping off a spoon. It was loud and confident, each word said with assertion.

“Your fault for making assumptions, then.” Minho struggled to appear nonchalant, the simple shrugging of his shoulders a fine touch to his act. He didn’t want to acknowledge that perhaps Jisung was right to assume as such. 

“I suppose it is.” Jisung copied his shrug, “Though, would it be too much of me to assume you aren’t exactly in your element at this moment?”

“It’s a lot to assume you can make such a judgment,” A tongue click was covered by the pulsing beat, “you don’t know what my element looks like, let alone what I look like in it.” 

Jisung grinned, a lazy and comfortable gesture. His hands stuffed into his pockets, eyebrow raised in a silent acceptance of a challenge. Minho wasn’t really posing one, but he won’t dare say another word. 

“I know for certain it looks nothing like red stop lights. It resembles something closer to a riverbank in the dead of night.”

“Which isn't your element.” Minho felt the need to point that out, “Do you want to tell me why you were there?”

The point of his question was to ward off any further interrogation. He didn’t actually want an answer, though Jisung seemed way too ready to give him one. 

“Bit of a late night drive is all.” His smirk was so irritating, Minho couldn’t help but fire off the next thing dancing along the tip of his tongue.

“A late night drive?” A scoff escaped him, “A city kid taking a late night drive to the rural village? How lucky were we to be graced with your temporary presence.” 

“What makes you think I'm from the city.” He was. He wasn’t going to confirm Minho’s assumption without giving him hell first.

“Nobody who works near farmers wears designer jeans.” Minho casted a look down at Jisung’s attire. His lip snarled upwards when he recognized the telltale mark of a designer brand. 

“Maybe I’m new. You make quite an assumption for someone who doesn’t know me.” 

“I don’t need to know you to know who you are. You wear it all on your face.” His tone was bitter, words harsh. Perhaps Minho himself was rough around the edges, nothing Jisung couldn’t smooth out. 

“And yours is as black as a fresh canvas.” Jisung sipped his drink before continuing, “I’d love to see what kinds of emotions you hide beneath such a vast space.” 

“Should I be insulted?”

“Only if you want to be.”

There was nothing left to say, but they stayed a little while longer. Stares never wavered from each other’s faces, both different yet their shared aspects shining through. This moment would fade and everything would go back to how it was before Lee Minho stepped into a club, before Han Jisung drove to the rural side of a town outside his domain and nothing would change. 

Jisung would go home and exhaust his lungs of air in the form of three paintings. He never stopped splattering color on the canvas, tears dried on his face as new ones fell and his chest ached from his staggering breaths. He would sit in the aftermath of it, blankly and silently staring at the wall and covered in color yet only being able to see one. At the end of the night, he would place a blue tablet on his tongue and swallow the color dry.

Minho would go home and watch as the empty white document taunted him from his laptop screen. He would stare at it for hours, begging himself to put _anything_ on those blank pages. He would curl up in a corner and rock back and forth as tears cascaded down his cheeks from his swollen eyes and bite his lips hard enough to tear them off. At the end of the night, he would spit globs of red into the sink and wash it down with envied purity. 

+++

Chance meetings were never actually left up to chance. Some cosmic force had to be behind it all, though it was probably much too powerful for the average human to ever guess. Some people believed in God, but even when they were given outlines, they would never truly understand how their God worked. The cosmic force behind it all simply wasn't a concept a weakling like a human could come up with nor understand.

Minho didn’t try to. He accepted long ago that there were things of this world that simply didn’t make sense, things that never would. To sit and dwell on such things and try to make meaning where there wasn’t any would just be foolish. It was simpler to move on, to not question such forces. After all, who's to say they could ever be understood, even in death. 

The motor of his car switched off with the turning of the key in the ignition, dim yellow lights overhead enveloping his figure in the front seat. He had pulled into a small convenience store, something akin to a knock-off 7/11. His town didn’t have an _actual_ 7/11, it wasn’t big enough nor rich enough for such a corporation. Instead, they had a gas-station-slash-convenience-store called “Corky’s” run by a local family. 

The night was quiet when his shoes hit the pavement beneath him, only the chirping of crickets and occasional dogs barking in the far distance broke through. Gasoline and greasy hot dogs hung in the air just outside the store, heavy and pungent. As one-track minded as he could be in the dead of the night, he walked the short distance to the door, greeted by the pitched chime of a bell hanging above.

The clerk was a middle-aged woman, her hair pulled back in a low ponytail and in desperate need of a wash. She reeked of cigarette smoke and cheap beer when he passed. She didn’t offer him more than a dismissive wave as he crossed the room.

Minho had a pretty consistent tradition with this store, one he hardly broke. He drove up at least three times a week and without looking at any other items, made a beeline for the slushee machines. He filled up a forty-four ounce cup with blue raspberry slush and paid at the counter in silence.

The bell bid him farewell as he exited the store, trading out cold tile floors for pavement once again. Nights like this were typically among his favorites, the darkness of the sky and the not-so-silent silence. If only nights like these could stretch on forever.

“Damn,” A whistle to his left disrupted the calm, “you really are deep in that head of yours.”

Against the brink exterior of the building, there Jisung sat, with a forty-four ounce slushee cup in his hand. A grin adorned his face, playful and cocky judging by his narrowed eyes. Red hair was split down the middle and pushed to either sides of his forehead, leaving the middle bare.

“What are you doing here?” The words left his mouth the second they appeared in his brain. They came out harsher than he intended, but Jisung didn't seem fazed by him. 

“What? I can’t come to my new favorite town and enjoy a slushee at a convenience store?” The slushee cup in his hand did circles in the air in front of his face. His grin widened when Minho raised an eyebrow.

“I’m beginning to think you _are_ stalking me.” 

“I’d have to know where you were to stalk you.” Jisung scoffed, pouting his bottom lip in an attempt to look innocent, “Besides, you walked right past me on your way in, didn’t even spare me a glance. That hurt, Minho.”

The hood of his car felt cold even through the fabric of Minho’s jeans as he leaned on it. The short silence carried over as Jisung took a sip of his slushee, a bright red color packed tightly into the cup. Every time his head moved, the dangling earring on his right ear followed.

“Did you come back here trying to find me?” Yet again, his words were blunt and harsh. Jisung seemed to be completely content.

“The slushees are great too.” He held up his own for emphasis, taking a dramatic and loud slurp from the oversized straw. Minho briefly thought his smile could rival the sun.

“Tracking down someone you barely know. and waiting for them at a random gas station means something in your brain has to be wired differently.” Minho retorted, bringing his own slushee to his lips and welcoming the burst of blue raspberry ice.

“And what does it mean when somebody who barely knows you tracks you down and waits at a random gas station and instead of running away, you stay and chat with them?” 

“It means something in my brain has to be wired differently.”

Minho sighed and plopped down next to Jisung, his back to the brick wall and their slushees sat in between them. Jisung stared at him for a moment, before turning his gaze to the road in front of the store. There hadn’t been a car pass for several minutes.

“This town is nice. It’s very homey.” He commented and Minho snorted in reply.

“Small towns are always appealing to those who don’t live in them.” It was mumbled, but loud and clear enough for Jisung to hear. He frowned.

“Oh yeah? Do you not like living here?”

“It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s just…” Minho trailed off, bottom lip sucking between his teeth and chewing. He shouldn’t go into detail, he didn’t know Jisung. 

“Just?” Jisung pushed on, forever curious to how Minho’s mind worked.

“It’s stupid.”

“Nah, go on.” Jisung moved closer, excited expression melting onto his face, “I want to hear what you think. It’s why I asked.”

“It’s just that I have lived here for as long as I can remember. I want to move somewhere else, live somewhere different for a change.” Minho shrugged, bringing his knees to his chest. He wasn’t feeling very secure right now and that was scary. 

“Why not move to the city?” Jisung prompted, his expression genuine, “It’s close enough to your parents and still a change.”

“No... it would be too much of a hassle. And what if I didn’t like it? Or my neighbors were weird or it made getting to classes harder? It’s not worth all that.”

“I’ve moved apartments three times in the last year, the whole neighbors thing is never a problem and the moving process isn't that bad. I could help, if you want.”

Minho shot Jisung a look, something borderline incredulous. They didn’t know each other, they hardly knew each other’s names. 

“The more you talk, the more I think you’re on a secret mission to kill me or something.” Minho narrowed his eyes, taking a sip of his slushee before continuing, “First, you stalk me and now you want inside my house? A serial killer, a literal serial killer.”

Jisung laughed, bright and happy. He mirrored Minho and sipped on his drink, eyes scanning over the road. 

“Friend works too, but alright.” He replied through a mouthful of red ice.

“We don’t even know each other.” Minho pointed out, reaching over and forcibly closing Jisung’s mouth before red liquid fell from the corners. 

“Doesn’t mean we won’t eventually. And I know a little bit about you.” Jisung insisted once he’d swallowed. 

“My name and the very obvious color of my hair is not impressive.”

“I know more than that. You’re a writer, you like blue raspberry slushees, you’re afraid of change and you have a certain stoic tone that makes you seem cold at first but really it’s just how you are.”

“This friendship is off to quite a kick considering you’re already insulting me” Minho chuckled a bit as he said it, Jisung’s delighted expression only making his smile stay longer. 

“Not an insult if it’s true. And you know that I’m an artist, I like cherry—“

“I did not know that.”

“—I'm afraid of commitment and my cheeks puff out like a squirrel when I’m confused.”

“I didn’t know two out of four of those things, but I did notice the cheek thing.” A finger squished into the younger’s cheek, Minho's smile bouncing off street lights when the skin bounced back into place as soon as he released him. Jisung smiled.

“Pretty cute, right?”

“If it helps you sleep at night, then sure.”

“You are cold blooded.”

“Perhaps.”

Another stretch of silence. They were comfortable being left to their thoughts, comfortable enough not to move from each other’s presence. Something about Minho was calming, serene. Something about Jisung was exciting, breathtaking.

“Hey Minho?” Jisung said into the air and immediately had the other’s attention, “You wanna go on a drive with me?”

+++

Nyctophobia. Fear of darkness or night. The truth is, not very many people are truly afraid of the dark. They are, instead, afraid of what’s in it. 

The things that are unknown have always been the scariest to people, the things they can’t see or feel. The dark is no different. After all, every man is blind when the lights are off.

Minho was well aware of his current condition. He was so aware of it that sometimes he wished he could be granted ignorance, at least then maybe his lack of knowledge wouldn’t fuel his condition the way knowing of its existence did. Anxiety was a funny thing, a funny thing that kept his nails short, the skin around his fingers bleeding and his lips chewed. Anxiety was a funny thing that kept him rooted into the ground where he stood. 

Though anxiety hadn’t won this battle. 

Instead, Han Jisung had. It was a strange matter, how Han Jisung managed to both contribute to and soothe his anxious mind. He was everything Minho wasn't, everything he longed to be but never could. He was also everything Minho disliked, everything that kept his ties to his current life strong. 

Maybe that balance between the two, in the form of a boy named Han Jisung, was the key to his survival.

The interstate was a vast stretch of asphalt, headlights fell over faded white lines split down the middle, aged from wear and weather. He briefly wondered how often those things were repainted, how long it took to repair them. Every bump in the road could be felt beneath him, hyper-aware from being surrounded by darkness. 

The wind was blowing past his ears, creating a sharp whistle and blocking out any other noise. It was the opposite and yet the same to the noise of the club a few nights ago. The car’s sleek exterior felt cold on his palm where he rested it outside of the passenger’s side window. Jisung was in the driver's seat, going well over the recommended speed limit.

“How many speeding tickets do you have?” Minho asked out of nothing but pure curiosity. He couldn't imagine what it was like to go this far this fast every day of his life. Oh, how he’d like to imagine it though.

“Not enough.” Jisung’s answer was accompanied by a lazy grin. It was an expression he wore often, confidence and ease. He fit it well.

“That’s so ominous.” Minho shook his head, “I hate it.”

Jisung barked a laugh. There was nobody on the road with them at this hour, and yet he swerved in and out of the fast lane time and time again. An absolute madman, he was.

“I’m going to frame them and hang them above my bed.” He swerved left, “I think it’ll spice up the new apartment.” 

“Evidence of breaking the law used as home decor?” Minho shook his head once more, not even bothering to conceal his smile from the night air, “You truly are an artist.” 

“I think I’ll steal a road sign next.” Jisung glanced over at him, the smile on his face wider than before. Minho packed the capabilities to determine whether he was joking or not.

“I think I’ll kill you if you do anything like that when I am anywhere within one thousand feet of you.”

And Jisung laughed.

+++

The city was everything Minho knew it would be. Large buildings beyond the clouds themselves and streets that seemed just as lively as they did in the daytime greeted them when they arrived. Noise was all around him, even from outside the car, but he found that he didn’t exactly mind it. It was a change from the tranquility he knew so well, but it wasn’t a bad change. 

There were aspects of the city that he would never get to see in his small town. He was blinded by the city lights, the colorful billboards and most of all, the graffiti. It was a weird thing to latch onto, out of so many other beautiful things in a new world, but it was one he found himself drawn to without intention. 

The designs on most were very abstract, almost random. Lines and colors and shapes blended together, his naked eye incapable of understanding their depth. For a moment, he cursed himself for having the brain of a writer instead of that of an artist. They were similar, but different in so many ways.

The car stopped at a red light, right in front of an alleyway. Minho’s eyes scanned it for the graffiti he was hooked to, only to find that the artwork adorning the walls of this particular alleyway was nothing like the abstract pieces he’d seen before. It was done by the hand of a practiced and serious artist, somebody who wanted to send a message through their work.

The mural was of a faceless figure, painted entirely in blues. Their heart was clutched in their palms, red staining their blue skin. The organ itself, however, didn’t have the same harsh red color. Lilac melted from the once beating heart ripped from their chest. 

The work had taken time and dedication, and Minho wished once more that he had the mind to decipher it piece by delicate piece. When he faced back toward the front, he caught Jisung staring at him, unreadable expression on his face. Before he had time to question it, the light turned green and they sped under.

Jisung brought them to the top of a cliff, far from any civilization, their slushees melted as they sat untouched in the cup holders. They were above the lights, overlooking a city that didn’t know they existed. It was exhilarating. 

“What’s something you’ve always wanted to do?” Jisung’s soft voice broke the silence after a few long minutes. He didn’t turn to look at him as he asked, instead focused on the view.

“Eat chalk.” Minho answered and Jisung did turn to look at him then.

“What the fuck?”

“It looks tasty.” Minho shrugged, his hand running through and tousling his hair around. Jisung kept looking at him like he’d lost his mind.

“Something that won’t end with me in prison and you in the emergency room?” He clarified.

“Well, that narrows over half the list.”

Jisung looked up to the sky with round eyes. He pressed his hands together like he was pleading before someone. 

“Hey God, me again, why do you send these people to me?”

“ _You_ stalked _me_ in my hometown. _”_ Minho cut in, fingers playing with the fraying threads of his hoodie. He kept unconsciously biting his lip, breaking the skin and making it sensitive.

“I happened to end up in a place you were likely to be. Premeditated.” Jisung corrected him as if there were any corrections to be made. Jisung’s way of saying it was just fancier. 

“Insanity at its finest.” 

“No Jisung-slander allowed.” He chuckled, and then his face fell just slightly more serious, “No, seriously, you said you’re afraid of change. So, what’s something you’ve wanted to do?”

Minho thought for a minute. There was a long list of things he wanted to do, none of them doable within the time they had tonight. It was stupid honestly, how being with Jisung made him unafraid to conquer those things, their only enemy being time. He knew Jisung wouldn’t judge him, even if it was so easy to.

“This is going to sound so fucking stupid, but I’ve always wanted to break into, like, a neighborhood pool after hours and swim.”

Jisung didn’t comment on the childishness of the dream, or the fact that it was totally on the milder side of things. He nodded, like he understood early what Minho meant. There was no way somebody who lived their life in the fast lane understood hesitation, but he appreciated the gesture.

“Does your neighborhood have a pool?”

“Are you kidding?” A scoff broke past Minho’s lips before he could stop it, “We can’t afford a 7/11, we have a dirty creek and that is it.”

Jisung sat in thought for a few more moments, leaving Minho to his own curious devices. The older duh through his glove box compartment, seeming to think the conversation had ended there. He organized Jisung’s wallet while he waited for his next response.

“Then what about the hotel?”

“What?”

Minho turned to him with an incredulous look, still switching his cards around according to purpose. He was mumbling under his breath about how many gift cards Jisung possessed, how much money he probably had on all of them. 

“You know. A hotel pool. We’ll hop the fence and swim after hours.”

This time, Minho turned his full attention to Jisung. The wallet fell to his lap, brows furrowed. 

“Right now?” He questioned.

“Yeah, why not?”

Minho hesitated. As fun as the idea always sounded to him, it was different to actually do it. He couldn't imagine what would happen if something were to go wrong, what he would do. It was better to play it safe. 

“I don’t know Jisung. What if we get caught?”

“Then we’ll run for our lives.” The redhead grinned and Minho very quickly realized that he wasn’t going to let it go. He didn’t have a choice anymore. 

“You’re very strange.”

“Maybe.”

The ride to the hotel was met with mostly silence and the soft notes from the radio floating around them. A rather worn down building came into view and Jisung pulled into the parking lot without so much of a glance at the road. The hotel was only three or so floors, and could barely be considered a hotel with the way the doors and windows were falling in. Abandoned, he realized.

“This is fucking crazy.” Minho said once again as they stood in front of the fence. The pool was outside and only separated from the public by one measly fence, but he still couldn’t squash the feeling of anxiety building in his gut. 

“Yes, we have been over that.” Jisung hooked one of his feet into the holes of the fence and propelled himself upward. His left leg swung over, straddling the fence and he looked down where Minho still stood frozen on the ground, “Several times, actually. You coming or what?” 

He really shouldn’t. There was so much that could go wrong but—fuck it.

Minho copied Jisung’s movements, followed him over the fence a bit shakily and let out a sigh of relief when his feet touched concrete once again. Jisung was already standing by the pool edge.

“Stop thinking so hard,” He said with a backwards glance at Minho, “your face is scrunching up. Relax.”

“Easy enough for you to say.” Minho made a poor attempt at scoffing, “You think breaking the law is just character development.”

“Lee Minho.” Jisung stood up straight, facing him and letting the lights reflect off the pool water onto his face. 

“Han Jisung.” He countered.

“I’m going to throw you in the pool now.”

“What?”

Cold. His entire body was engulfed in coldness. It took him a few extra seconds to determine that he couldn’t breathe, that there was resistance against his arms and legs, that he was floating upwards. He broke the surface with a gasp, blue chunks of hair flying out of his eyes.

“You’re a little shit!” He exclaimed, though he couldn't actually put heat behind the words. Jisung’s grin was too bright, too arrogant for him to genuinely be mad. 

“You’ve just realized? Usually people get that way earlier.” He took a few steps back from the edge, shooting Minho an expectant look, “Move over, or do you want me to cannonball on your head?”

Minho grumbled but touched his back to the side of the pool. A running start had Jisung flying out to the middle and splashing everything within a twenty feet radius. Minho’s suddenly glad they left their phones in the car.

Jisung broke the surface, smile still hanging on his face, like it couldn’t be wiped off by anything. They migrated to the middle of the pool without notice, standing very close.

“My clothes are sticking to me,” Minho said after a moment of listening to the water around them move with their limbs, “it’s gross.”

Jisung barked a laugh, his hand moving his hair from his eyes. 

“Do you know how to function without complaining?”

“No.”

They were used to the silence that sometimes took them, words not needing to be said. It was a strange little thing for such strange people, but neither of them acknowledged it nor complained about it. 

“So, is this everything you wanted it to be?” Jisung asked, tipping his head back and letting the water coat his scalp.

“It’s colder than I thought.” Minho replied, monotoned.

“Other than that.” A roll of his eyes.

“Other than that, it’s pretty close.” Minho shrugged, watching Jisung smile wide, “You’re here though, that was never part of the original fantasy.”

“The original fantasy? Does that mean I’m a part of the new one?” His eyebrows were raised in such a cocky expression, Minho was tempted to flat out deny everything about it. He remembered at the last second that Jisung wouldn’t judge him for playing along.

“Don’t think you’re special, you’re just the only bastard crazy enough to do this.” He said instead. Jisung smirked and leaned in closer, dangerously toeing the line they walked. Their noses a breath apart.

“Well, I'd say I am special, since I’m the only bastard in your life crazy enough to do this.” Those words ghosted over Minho’s lips. He didn’t pull away, secured to his spot. 

“You met me at an art museum once and think you know me.” He leaned in closer as well, determined to be the winner of whatever they had going on. He wouldn’t be out done by Jisung.

“I also met you at the club, and the gas station.” 

“Ah yes, riveting experiences. You must have my DNA memorized by now.” 

“No, I’m still working on that.” 

That silence again. That deafening silence again. Neither of them moved away, smug expressions stuck on their faces as they challenged the other to back out. Neither did.

“We have this whole pool and you want to be right in my face.” Minho breathed, knowing his words would fan directly over Jisung’s face. The younger shivered. 

“Maybe I like the view better.”

“Maybe I’m considering drowning you.”

“You accuse me of being a serial killer a lot for someone constantly threatening to murder me.”

“Never said I wasn’t one.” 

They laughed, soft and quiet and breathless. The tension between them was there, kept at bay by only an inch between their bodies. An inch Minho wouldn’t dare close and yet he dared Jisung to. He wasn’t sure why he was so determined to get the other to crack before he did, but he wanted him to. 

“Should I be concerned?”

“Are you?”

“Not really.”

“So, you helped me overcome my fears,” Minho’s grin became just the slightest bit more sincere, “how may I be of assistance now?”

“You’re helping right now.” Jisung shrugged.

“How so?”

“By being here. Weirdly enough, I don’t think about all the horrible and suffocating shit going on when you’re around.” Jisung’s voice was serious, his face scrunched up as he got lost in his own thoughts for a moment, “I think you’re casting a spell on me.”

“The possibilities are endless.” Minho giggled and enjoyed the way Jisung smiled back earnestly.

“Or maybe you’re fixing me.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t even joke about that. I’m not going to cure your problems and you aren’t going to cure mine. We just understand each other.” Minho temporarily dropped all the smugness, all the teasing. As much as he liked being around Jisung, he knew he wasn’t the answer to everything that was wrong. He would still go home and have crippling anxiety, and Jisung would still go home and suffer his pain in whatever way he did. They weren’t solutions, they were just people.

“You’re right. But you should know this: you’re so vibrant, everything else just feels muted compared to you.”

Smooth motherfucker. Why did Minho’s heart flutter when he said such a thing? 

“Even whatever goes on up here.” The tip of his index finger lightly tapped Jisung’s forehead, teasing smile back on his face. 

“Especially that.”

“Maybe I’m your drug.”

“You’re way more addicting than any drug I’ve ever taken.”

That last line had them both throwing caution to the wind, forgetting just for a moment about consequences and repercussions. They would deal with all of that another day. They got closer, the space between them growing smaller, closer and closer and closer until—

Police sirens. Red and blue lights casted over the hotel doors just before them. Neither of them moved apart immediately, lips just barely brushing over one another’s. 

“You tripped the alarm, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

That was all it took for them to scramble to the edges of the pool, pushing themselves up and toward the fence. Car doors slamming urgently had their feet moving faster, unsteady as they all but fell over the fence and ran. Minho stumbled, hearing the police hot on their heels, and yet he couldn't find that fear he expected to grow in the pit of his stomach.

Instead, he thought he might be going slightly crazy because he laughed. Soles of their shoes pounded against the concrete to where they had left the car, though Jisung threw in several detours in hopes of throwing the feds off their tail. One sharp turn in an alleyway led to grunts and crashing behind them, but neither of them turned around as they ran to where Jisung’s vehicle was parked. 

“I’m going to fucking kill you!” Minho yelled when he was sure the police couldn’t hear his voice clearly. Jisung threw open the car door, Minho sliding inside at the same time.

“I’m helping you conquer your fears, you should be thanking me!”

The key turned in the ignition and they were speeding away within seconds. Caution’s new home to be the wind.

+++

Three days time had passed between the last time Lee Minho saw Han Jisung. 

A document devoid of words mocking him was all the proof he needed that he had been right. Han Jisung was not the answer to his problems, he wasn’t going to cure him, fix him. Sure, the fog in his head seemed to clear when Jisung stood close and the dull pain where his open skin around his fingers lay exposed didn’t seem to bother him as much. Still, Jisung didn’t fix the anxiety every time he opened a document, every time he read a book or watched a movie and envied the creator for the plot brilliance.

Jisung wasn't the answer, but he made finding it a little easier. 

“This is so stupid.”

“Yeah.”

“You have a walnut for a brain.” He was also extremely kind.

“Yeah.”

For the second time that week, Minho propelled over a fence, Jisung following him over with no more than a roll of his eyes. The blue-haired boy took a moment to appreciate the scenery, the usually bustling area now dead quiet and dark. Jisung sighed loudly next to him.

“What now?”

Minho scoffed, “How do you classify your second time breaking and entering in the span of three days something to pass over?”

“Oh right,” Jisung hummed, his eyes floating around the vacant park in interest, “I forgot you’re basically Rapunzel.”

“I am not!”

“You totally are.”

Minho grumbled, unwilling to fight a losing battle. If there was one thing he had learned about Han Jisung, it was his ability to argue passionately over the dumbest shit possible. That, and that he was a petty criminal.

“Will you just shut up and follow me?” 

“Right away, your highness.” 

Of all the broken down picnic tables that lined the interior of the park, there was one Minho liked the best. He wasn’t sure why exactly, just that it was the same table his family always sat at when they came for their occasional summer picnic. Maybe it’s the memories he has at that table, maybe it’s the ones he wants to make.

The wood of the picnic table burrowed into his back through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. His feet dangled onto the bench, too long to lie comfortably across the surface. The creaking of the wood was the only indication that Jisung had followed him and lied down the opposite way. 

There were so few stars out tonight, Minho could write a story with them. The same night sky he had stared at endlessly stared back at him, beckoning him deeper and deeper into the abyss. If he leaned too close to the edge, he would fall in forever.

“Jesus Christ, why are you always in a mid-existential crisis when we meet?” Jisung’s voice was loud in his ear, despite not being any more than a whisper to the silence. He turned his face and Jisung, too, turned his head to meet Minho’s eye. They were what some would consider too close for comfort, but comfort was a normality they had long ago abandoned. 

“You’re killing the vibes.” Minho said back, cheek pressing into the dark wood. Jisung smiled brighter than any star that dared dot the sky.

“I am the vibes.”

“That does not make a fucking ounce of sense.” 

“Your IQ is simply too low to understand.”

“My IQ is the highest in my class.”

“Being a one in a class of zeros is nothing to brag about.”

“Hey!” 

Laughter rang through the park in the dead quiet, followed by a smack to Jisung’s bicep. It was lucky that they were far from where anybody could complain about the noise, one of the very few benefits of living in such a small and remote place. There weren’t many others.

Two hours passed, some moments spent in complete silence and some spent laughing over whether water was wet or not, their debates having no meaning. Because it was so late and Minho had been up for hours to do his class work, he found himself drifting off against the table. He was only snapped out of his dozing by Jisung’s fingers snapping in his ear.

When did they start holding hands? At such an odd angle too?

“Come on, you need to go to sleep.” Jisung said, peeling his back from the wood and hopping off the bench as if he had all the energy in the world left in his body. Minho slowly sat up, shooting an inquisitive look at the younger.

“Where are we going?” He followed Jisung back to the fence, where he had to be helped over it. He almost wasn't strong enough to support his body weight and took several moments of swaying to regain balance. 

“We’ll go back to mine. My bed is a king.” Jisung guided him with a gentle hand on his back.

“Your place?” 

“Do _you_ want to sneak into your bedroom at three in the morning?”

“Your place it is.”

+++

Jisung’s place turned out to be a small apartment on the fifth floor of a thirteen floor complex, smack in the middle of the city. Finding parking must have been hell around these parts, but Jisung’s rent came with a parking spot in the garage. Large price to pay for some small living.

The open floor plan had them entering through the living room, a small kitchen completely visible. There was a hallway to the left, leading to a bathroom and a storage closet. To the right, a staircase that led up to a loft with a king sized bed.

Minho’s body went limp on the third step up, forcing his weight to be placed in the hands of the red headed boy dragging him. A hellish journey the rest of the way up would definitely be leaving his body sore, but he couldn’t really think to care much about that. Jisung threw him on the left side of the bed.

“Hey.”

Minho flinched at the volume of his own voice, blinking to keep himself awake. Jisung groaned as he laid on the bed, hands running down his face and rubbing his eyes. 

“I thought you were tired.”

“Shut up.” Minho grumbled, watching the ceiling intently and feeling his eyes grow heavier, “I’m kind of delirious but I wanted to say thank you.”

“For what?” Jisung turned his head, confusion written across his features. Minho was blinking slowly now at the ceiling.

“You aren’t going to fix me, but you help me fix myself. Everything becomes background noise when you’re around.” 

“I don’t—uh— do this emotion thing well, but I feel the same. My art is beginning to reflect that.” Jisung’s eyes find the piece he’s done in the last three days. A little blue man with bright red hair, lilac eyes and a smile on his face. A face that was finally painted. He would show Minho this piece in the morning and it’s counterpart.

“This is fucking crazy. We’ve known each other for a week.” 

“Shit doesn’t make sense sometimes. But I’m not opposed to how this is going.”

“Yeah. Me neither.” 

And soon enough, Minho was asleep, with Jisung staring at the side of his face as he drifted away. It was late, but earlier than he usually slept and he found that dark slumber found him easier than he had before. 

+++

A subtle ache behind his eyes pulled tears down Minho’s face as the soft light peeked through the window. Slow and quiet _tap tap tap_ s from the balcony told him it was raining. Gray skies outside cast the room in a gloomy glow. It was then that he realized this room was not his.

His attempt to fly upwards was wasted, the flaring soreness in his back pulling him right back down. His legs stretched and he rubbed his eyes. The dark red comforter resting against his chest didn’t belong to him either, dark walls covered in paintings and sketches certainly didn’t. He could never be that productive. 

There was a noise downstairs, followed by loud cursing and sizzling. Somebody else was here. 

Slower than before, Minho pushed himself off the mattress, gazing around the room he could now see fully in wonder. Most of the paintings followed the same subject, a person painted with blues. The one of the far right wall was in a lake, sinking to the bottom. The one next to it, the same blue person surrounded by couples painted in green and orange. Another painting was of a blue mouth, tongue sticking out and dark blue pills falling from the sides and the middle of the muscle.

But the most interesting painting was the one beside the bed. There was no blue in this one, only purples and this time, the person didn’t seem as sad as they appeared in the others. They were in a field of lavender flowers and amethyst trees. 

The noise from downstairs returned and Minho reluctantly stood on his feet. He didn’t remember much from the night before, only that he had extensive work to be done for his classes and at some point, had fallen asleep in a park with—

“Jisung?” His voice was small and scratchy. He cleared his throat and tried again.

“Yeah?” Oh, thank god.

His feet ached as he climbed down the stairs, brief memory of the apartment coming back to him as he found the bottom of the stairs. Jisung was in the kitchen, struggling with a frying egg. He grinned.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so disheveled.” A small giggle bursted from his lips while Minho glared. The kitchen was a mess of cooking utensils and pans, Minho just now noticing the smell.

“What are you cooking?” He pulled out the stool at the counter, overseeing the stove. Jisung moved the eggs to two plates beside the oven.

“I didn’t know what you eat, so I kind of made everything. Pancakes are in the microwave, sausage and bacon are over there on the counter and here’s the eggs.” He moved all the food onto two plates and sat one directly in front of Minho. The older stared at it in shock.

“Aren’t you a college student? How do you afford all this food?” 

“I work most weekends, plus I have an art account where I sell commissions. People tend to like my work and they pay decently when asked.” 

“If those paintings up there are yours, then yeah, I can definitely understand that.” 

Some cartoon was playing on the TV in the living room, the volume turned down low. Minho learned Jisung didn’t like to watch the news and preferred to start his day with orange juice rather than coffee. Jisung also didn’t like runny eggs.

“The bathroom is just down the hall.” Jisung loaded the dishwasher, pointing at the other end of the room. Minho at least helped him rinse everything off before they loaded it. 

The bathroom was a little small, a little cramped, but it was cute. The walls were light blue, a ladybug soap holder next to the sink. The shower curtain had pokémon all over it.

Minho’s blue hair was sticking up in all different directions. How Jisung managed to talk to him without laughing every few seconds was beyond him. His eyes were also puffy, cheeks swollen from sleep. 

He found a towel and took a shower, doing the best he could to fix his appearance. Jisung was in the living room when he came out, dressed in the same clothes he’d worn the night before.

“Hey, I have to run down to campus and speak with my partner on a project, it might be a minute. You’re welcome to stay if you want.” 

Minho hummed, his aching body welcoming the plush red of the couch. He hadn’t properly rested in days, it really wasn’t a surprise when he passed out on the picnic table. 

“What time will you be back?” 

“Probably around three.” Jisung shrugged on a light blue jacket, his red hair parted down the middle again. 

“What time is it now?”

“One forty-five.”

Oh shit. Oh fucking shit.

“I have to go home.” Minho was up in an instant. He couldn't believe he had slept so long. Jisung looked at him, confused as Minho ran around the apartment in search of his phone.

“I have a paper due at five and I haven’t even started on it. I am so fucked.” He found his phone by the bed and shoved it in his pocket, leaping down the stairs and mentally screaming at himself. Jisung held up his hands for him to calm down.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’ll drive you home before I meet with Chan, I’m sure he won’t mind. Besides, you have no idea where you are.” 

Well, Jisung was right about that. Plus, his driving would be _way_ faster than the bus. 

“Do you even know where my house is?” Minho asked as Jisung grabbed his keys and ushered him out of the apartment. He didn’t remember the hallway carpet being red, but he also didn’t remember a lot of things about last night.

“I picked you up last night before we went to the park. Come on, I can get you there in twenty minutes.”

Jisung’s car was a navy blue SUV, something Minho has never really given thought to. He almost laughs at the difference in even their vehicles. Two sides of the same coin.

“What’s your paper about?” Jisung asks once they’re on the road, permanently stuck in the fast lane as they move far beyond the speed everyone else is.

“The craziest thing you’ve ever done.”

+++

The paper was submitted at 4:47 and Minho finally allowed himself to breathe. The work wasn't his best, wasn’t anything close to it with a time frame like that, but he felt okay with it. That was more than he could say for a lot of things he’d written recently. Realistically, he knew that what he considered to be his “best” writing was simply unattainable. His expectations for himself were higher than what could be achieved by anyone. 

It was a quarter past midnight when Jisung called him, the number flashing on his screen making his heart leap into his throat. At a quarter past midnight, Minho snuck out of his house and waited patiently by the road for Jisung.

Ten minutes later, a car swung around the corner at the end of the street, nearly taking the stop sign with it. Minho huffed a laugh as the car steered back to the center of the road and picked up speed. The brakes yelled in protest when the car flung forward in a sudden dead stop.

“You call for an Uber?” Jisung’s wide smile greeted him through the window, the golden glow of hazy street lights washing over his hair and turned it orange. Minho quirked an eyebrow at his line.

“Yeah, but it seems my driver is a reckless criminal. I’d like a transfer, please.”

“Sorry sir, all our other drivers are full right now. Guess you’re stuck with me.” 

Minho pretended to huff and reluctantly slide in. Before the door even closed behind him, Jisung was pulling off again, his tires screeching. Honestly, he was going to be the cause of a thirty car pile up one day.

“So, why did you call me out tonight, kind sir?” Minho fastened his belt as quickly as he could manage, trying to keep his head from slamming into the window full force. 

“I need to show you something.” 

That was all the response Jisung gave and Minho knew better than to try and fight him. Soft music drifted from the radio and filled the silence in the car. By now, the interstate was a welcomed sight.

The city was no less loud, equally as bustling and chaotic, and Minho still loved every part of it. A boy like him wasn't made for the city, but he was made to love the city. A boy like him was made for the small outskirt town he lived in and he was mostly okay with that.

Jisung parked up on the curb in front of a restaurant, killing the engine and smirking at Minho’s inquisitive expression. The little bell jiggled above their heads as they entered, a boy with a bright smile and white hair looking up.

“You left your paints here.” The boy said, voice deep and a complete contrast to his boyish looks. Upon reaching the counter, Minho could see the small gems under the boy’s eyes. 

“Yeah, I’ll get them after I go out there. What kind of soups do you have?” Jisung leaned against the counter like he belonged there, but the white-haired man didn’t comment on it. 

“Soybean sprout soup on the way.”

“Thank you, Felix, you are a god. This is Minho by the way, he’s shy.”

“No, I’m not.” 

“Let’s go.” Jisungs hand encased his wrist, pulling him urgently toward the back of the store. Minho glanced at Felix, the other laughing at his misfortune. 

Jisung’s pull was persistent. The back door of the shop burst open into a small alleyway, hidden from the main streets and concealed with a bright blue dumpster. The dark brick walls were not bare in the slightest, but the mural that covered most of it was recognizable even from a mile away.

Two hands painted on the surface. One larger and dark blue. The other smaller and deep red. The tips of their middle fingers touched and from them, a lilac light emerged. 

The painting showed every resemblance to the one he’d seen in the alley that night when they broke into the hotel pool. He realized now why Jisung had been staring at him so curiously. Minho was marveling at the work of a hand he knew.

“Han.” He whispered, close enough to read the signature. Jisung sighed beside him, his own eyes staring at the painting.

“That’s me.” 

“You.” Minho said, a sudden realization overtaking him, “You were the artist of that red and blue painting at the exhibit, weren’t you? That was you.”

“Some people take pride in their work. Others throw it out for the wolves and never come back to it. I threw that piece out to the wolves.” Jisung shrugged, nonchalance overtaking his features, “You were right. It was a spectrum, but it was also deeper. Red implies heat and blue implies cold. But the naked trees only stood on one side of the canvas, the red side. It isn't the blue winter that's the hardest, it’s the red winter. The red winter and the blue summer.”

“Can't blame your feelings on the cold when you’re sad even in the heat.” Minho mumbled and the corner of his eye told him Jisung had turned to look back at him.

They stared at the piece in silence, several minutes passing without much thought. At some time, a chill ran past their bodies and they headed inside for some of Felix’s soup, while another boy named Hyunjin came out to berate Jisung. 

Minho thought he had finally gotten over his writer’s block. 

+++

They sat on Minho’s bed a day or so later, when his parents had gone to a work party and Minho was left at home without much to do. The news he wanted to tell Jisung was eating him up on the inside, making him restless while he waited for him to get there. He all but dragged Jisung up to his room when he did.

He still hadn’t told him yet. Jisung sat beside him, sketching a piece he wanted to enter for another exhibit, comfortably sitting in silence with him. Minho’s curiosity got the better of him.

“What are you drawing?” He tried to peak over at the sketchbook, only for Jisung to smash it against his chest. Minho raised an eyebrow.

“That is a secret.” 

“Oh, come on,” Minho reached forward, expecting the book to come to him easily. It didn’t. Jisung held tight and Minho rolled his eyes and moved closer, trying to wrestle the paper from Jisung’s clenched hands. 

Jisung started laughing first and Minho followed, still struggling to get a proper hold on the pad. Jisung was wiggling around, trying to get as far out of his reach as he could without tumbling off the bed. Minho wrapped his arms around the younger boy’s frame and pulled him back to his chest. Jisung turned his head and his giggling ceased when he noticed the lack of space between them.

He would be a fool not to know. They both knew, but it was too much of a risk to take.

“Am I a fucking idiot—“

“Yeah.” 

“Never mind.” 

Minho laughed softly, but he didn’t move away. His arms only seemed to pull tighter. All his life, he had been too afraid of what there was to lose, of what consequences came from a risk. The benefits never mattered to him. But for once, he didn’t feel that need to bite the skin around his nails, didn’t feel the need to push everything away from him. 

For once, he stopped thinking so damn much.

“We don’t know each other.” He said, because it was the truth and there was hardly any denying that.

“That is correct.” Jisung breathed, his voice small and soft now as opposed to his usual rowdiness. 

“We’ve only known our names for a week.”

“Week and a half, if you’re technical.” Jisung pointed out, body relaxing in Minho’s hold. Wherever he was going with this, Jisung would wait.

“I didn’t know your name at the red light.”

“I suppose you make points.”

“Is this weird to you?” He needed to know that he wasn’t the only one, needed the extra layer of reassurance before he went away further. He was taking a leap, but he had to stand at the edge to make it.

“Yeah.” Jisung croaked, “Honestly, I’m terrified.”

Minho snorted, “That fear of commitment flaring right about now?”

“It’s been flaring this whole time. I don’t have constants of any kind, but you are so damn quick to dig your feet into the ground you stand on.”

Minho hummed.

“Perhaps my fear of movement has its benefits. I won’t be moving from the forefront of your mind any time soon.” It was meant as half a joke, but Jisung stared back seriously, lip caught between his teeth. He tended to worry it often, biting the plush skin.

“So, tell me.” He whispered into the space between them, “I’m standing still right now and that is something I am deeply afraid of, but what is in motion for you?”

“Everything.” He replied shortly.

“Everything?”

“I submitted a piece to my college’s writing contest.” Minho felt his bones grow lighter as he finally shared the big news, “The winner receives a chance to speak with publishers.”

“No way.” Jisung smiled huge, bright and loud and constant, “That’s incredible, Min. You’re going to be a writer.”

“I’m already a writer.” 

Jisung grinned. “You are.”

“Since everything else in my life has started to move, I’m going to make one last move. And I need you to stay still.” The breath he drew was deep and he knew by the soft smile on Jisung’s face that he already knew. 

“Okay.” 

Minho moved forward and captured his lips quickly. Jisung sat still, letting Minho have the control. It was slow and probably overdue, but it was the collision that mattered. It was the beginning of a red and blue melting into purple.

“As nice as this is, my neck is starting to hurt.” Jisung laughed and flipped around so they were facing each other. Minho didn’t say another word, he just leaned forward again and continued his move. Jisung didn’t try to rush through this. This, he wanted to take slow.

And it was okay to be afraid of that.

+++

_Three months later._

Things weren’t perfect, they weren’t fixed.

Jisung had mood swings, impulses and irrational fears of standing still. He was afraid to miss opportunities, afraid to stay in case someone got bored of him. He had a depressive disorder and the pills could only make him happy for certain hours.

But in the hours that the pills didn’t work, Minho was there, writing a piece with shaking hands because sometimes writing was harder than anything he’d ever done. He was never bored, he was never too tired or busy to be there. He stayed. And that made Jisung stay too.

Minho was diagnosed with anxiety. He worried about everything, struggled to talk to people in fear of looking like a fool, his thoughts of what others perceived him to be ate at him until he was sick to his stomach. His hands shook every time he made another move, another step outside of what he knew.

But when things got tough, Jisung appeared. Jisung, who didn’t always have a smile on his face, even if it was most of the time. Jisung, who drove to the places Minho didn’t know and talked to the people Minho shied away from. Jisung made moves every day, and that kept Minho moving too.

Things weren’t perfect, but they were getting better. 

Minho made two new friends from his class, Seungmin and Jeongin, who thought his quirks were wonderful even if they did pick on him for them. They didn’t have the results from the contest yet, but Minho did his best not to worry about it too much. 

Jisung got accepted into another exhibit, his newest piece to be displayed at the front. He hadn’t let Minho see it, despite asking him to work out the kinks in his back from where he hovered over the canvas for hours at a time. 

The exhibit was opening today and Jisung and Minho were there yet again in front of the large doors. Minho wore a satin blue suit, freshly dyed hair slicked back on his forehead. Jisung was next to him, in a bright red three piece, red bangs split down the middle.

Jisung led them immediately to the exhibit, standing proudly in front of his work. Minho was always impressed by his boyfriend’s art, but this was a different level. 

The blue person from before had a face now, one similar to Jisung’s, his hair bright red. A lilac glow illuminated from his chest, where his heart was, Wrapped around his shoulders, another figure that looked akin to Minho was painted red with dark blue hair and the same glowing chest. The background behind them was red at the top, blue at the bottom, but faded into purple in the middle.

Minho smiled at the piece. He knew how to describe his feelings, while Jisung could show them. It made sense how their pieces mirrored their works. This particular piece was the exact basis of his entry piece for the contest, _Lilac Skies._

“Well, if this isn’t the goddamn flashback from Hell.” He commented and Jisung laughed next to him. His smile was looking brighter than it had recently and Minho couldn’t be more proud.

“Feels like years.”

“Shut up, it’s been three months.”

“Still.” Jisung turned and faced him fully, Minho doing the same, “Feels like we’re meeting all over again.”

“I can’t even imagine.” His eyes float back to the painting on the wall, the laughing and bright boy in red, “I’m nothing like that kid I was.” 

“Then, let’s have a redo.”

“A redo?”

“Are you following me?” 

Minho stared at him, dumbly, before the words rang in his head. The first words Jisung had spoken to him. That silly smile was on his face again.

“I was going to ask you the same.”

“Guess that answers that question.”

“Hi,” Minho extended his hand, goofily laughing at how Jisung brightened, “my name is Lee Minho. I’m a writer.”

“I’m Jisung,” He shook his hand, “the artist.”

An object in motion tends to stay in motion. An object at rest tends to stay at rest. The only way to change this is if an outside force acts upon them. An unstoppable force meets an immovable object.

And what happens with something unstoppable meets something immovable?

They collide.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Remember your comments make me the happiest so I would love to hear your thoughts!


End file.
